From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:57:39 -0500
On the thread of Adequate Peer Review, here are aggregated comments by
Jennifer Howard, Bernie Sloan, David Prosser, Sally Morris, Tracey
DePellegrin Connelly, Richard Poynder, and Carter Glass, victims of a
February 20th system crash on our mailhost. Ann Okerson, Moderator
****************************
From: Jennifer Howard <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:58:47 +0000
I don't think is an OA issue, or not just an OA issue. For instance, I
regularly hear complaints about a decline in copy-editing and
line-editing standards at university presses. Some of those complaints
are unfounded but some are not.
Jen
----- Reply message -----
From: Ari Belenkiy <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:13:30 -0800
Peter,
yes, "those corrections" worth "millions" - or rather thousands of
dollars. Someone unbiased looked into your ideas and recognized their
worth.
The proof of their importance can be seen in the fact that almost each
item in the arXiv is corrected by the author after the initial
submission, so we often see versions "v.2", "v.3" etc. Otherwise why
to bother correcting something already published?
Ari Belenkiy
SFU
Canada
On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 12:55 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: "Peter B. Hirtle" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:38:44 +0000
>
> So one example of poor fact-checking in a peer-reviewed Gold OA
> article is evidence that "Gold OA...structurally requires lower
> editorial standards." That must mean that there has never been an
> error in a Toll-Access journal.
>
> Or is the problem not one of data but rather ideology: "Gold OA
> requires lower costs because the burden of paying for the work rests
> with the producer instead of being spread across all the readers"?
> One could just as easily argue that "Toll Access requires lower costs
> because of its burden of delivering obscene profits to private equity
> owners, and the past decade has taught us that the surest way of
> increasing profits is by lowering costs."
>
> So let's get real: how about looking at real data? For example, what
> are the kind of corrections that occur between preprints in arXiv and
> the final published version - and are those corrections worth the
> millions that it costs to produce them? Does anyone know?
>
> Peter Hirtle
***************
From: "B.G. Sloan" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:04:12 -0800
I once suffered a small editing error that changed the thrust of a
paper published in a print journal. The paper was about library
resource sharing. One of my main points was that it was surprising
that smaller libraries were "net lenders" (i.e., they loaned more
items to other larger libraries than they borrowed from other larger
libraries). At one point after I approved the final proof someone
changed "net" to "not" so that the paper said these smaller libraries
were NOT lenders.
Bernie Sloan
***************
From: Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:37:47 +0000
Poor language and spelling errors are rife in the published
literature, regardless of the business model. Errors range from
author-originated to typesetting-introduced and clearly peer review
and copy editing (if any) are not adequate to deal with them. As an
example, because it is very easy to check, I'd like to mention the β
vs ß problem (using the latter, the German sharp s, for the former,
the bèta). Just search any publisher platform for ß and you'll find
plenty of instances where it obviously should have been β. Errors like
this, and in e.g. the spelling of chemical structures, require extra,
sometimes extraordinarily complicated, efforts to interpret them
properly when the literature is being machine-read. And the literature
will have to be machine-read more and more due to the 'overwhelm' of
scientific articles being published, beyond the reasonable ability for
most researchers to read, making machine analysis imperative. (This is
an interesting reference in regard of the 'overwhelm': Alan G Fraser
and Frank D Dunstan "On the impossibility of being expert" BMJ 2010;
341 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c6815 — Published 14 December
2010)
Fortunately there are extremely clever people able to develop
algorithms to deal with many such errors, but it is a great shame that
they make it into the literature — into the 'version of record' — in
the first place at the scale they do.
Jan Velterop
***************
From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:32:44 +0000
Joe, beyond your one anecdote do you have any evidence to support the
contention that the average level of copy editing in OA journals is
lower than the average level of copy editing in subsription-based
journals? Or, if little or no copy-editing is a matter of policy do
you have evidence that for those publishers that have both OA and
subscription journals they, on average, copy-edit articles more
rigorously for the subscription journals?
David
On 19 Feb 2013, at 15:35, LIBLICENSE wrote:
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:06:13 -0500
>
> What is an OA issue is that no or little copy-editing is a matter of
> policy. That is a big change.
>
> I'm ambivalent about this question. Some copy-editing is silly (the
> regularization of footnote form). I think, though, that traditional
> publishing puts greater weight on editorial refinement than do OA
> services. The question is whether people will insist on that
> refinement and are willing to pay for it. But even if they say it's
> not worth it (as many are), the decline in refinement is real.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 4:06 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 08:59:59 +0000
>>
>> Between 10 and 20 years ago I worked for two large journal publishers.
>> One a massive commercial publisher, the other a prestigious
>> university press.
>>
>> In neither of these organisations would copy-editors routinely
>> fact-check the articles they were working on, and the type of issue
>> that Joe has highlighted would not have been picked up. I know that
>> it is tempting to view this as a failing of the APC OA business model,
>> but it really isn't. The vast majority of publishers have been
>> striving to push-down costs, including costs for copyediting and
>> proof-reading. I'm sure we all have our own lists of favourite
>> publishing errors (mine is a photo clearly upside-down in an article
>> put out by the aforementioned massive commercial publisher that made
>> it past the proof-reader), but let's not pretend this is necessarily
>> an OA issue.
>>
>> David Prosser
***************
From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:21:56 +0000
This type of error is going to make text mining very difficult...
Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU
Email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:37:47 +0000
Poor language and spelling errors are rife in the published
literature, regardless of the business model. Errors range from
author-originated to typesetting-introduced and clearly peer review
and copy editing (if any) are not adequate to deal with them. As an
example, because it is very easy to check, I'd like to mention the β
vs ß problem (using the latter, the German sharp s, for the former,
the bèta). Just search any publisher platform for ß and you'll find
plenty of instances where it obviously should have been β. Errors like
this, and in e.g. the spelling of chemical structures, require extra,
sometimes extraordinarily complicated, efforts to interpret them
properly when the literature is being machine-read. And the literature
will have to be machine-read more and more due to the 'overwhelm' of
scientific articles being published, beyond the reasonable ability for
most researchers to read, making machine analysis imperative. (This is
an interesting reference in regard of the 'overwhelm': Alan G Fraser
and Frank D Dunstan "On the impossibility of being expert" BMJ 2010;
341 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c6815 — Published 14 December
2010)
Fortunately there are extremely clever people able to develop
algorithms to deal with many such errors, but it is a great shame that
they make it into the literature — into the 'version of record' — in
the first place at the scale they do.
Jan Velterop
***************
From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:21:56 +0000
No, the article itself appears adequately edited - it's just the abstract
which seems to have escaped the editors' attention (the same may be true of
the article which originally sparked this discussion)
They do repeat some text word for word from their own previous article,
though...
Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU
Email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Pippa Smart <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 09:37:39 +0000
Is this a joke article?
Pippa
Pippa Smart
Research Communication and Publishing Consultant PSP Consulting
email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.pspconsulting.org
Editor of the ALPSP-Alert, Reviews editor of Learned Publishing
On 18 February 2013 20:52, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:15:45 +0100
>
> Joe,
>
> You might want to read the abstract to this paper:
>
> http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.000
> 3455
>
> Richard Poynder
****************
From: Carter Glass <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:23:42 -0500
Regularization of things like footnote form, references and author
names has tremendous value. If these are not well-behaved and in a
predictable format, it is impossible for machines to do automated
reference linking.
If a person goes to a library (or online) with an inverted volume
issue reference for a monthly journal, they can probably figure out
that the author meant 'Vol. 17, Issue 11' instead of 'Volume 11,
Issue 17'. This in fact actually happened with me.
Computers are doomed in this scenario.
On 2/19/2013 10:35 AM, LIBLICENSE wrote:
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:06:13 -0500
>
> What is an OA issue is that no or little copy-editing is a matter of
> policy. That is a big change.
>
> I'm ambivalent about this question. Some copy-editing is silly (the
> regularization of footnote form). I think, though, that traditional
> publishing puts greater weight on editorial refinement than do OA
> services. The question is whether people will insist on that
> refinement and are willing to pay for it. But even if they say it's
> not worth it (as many are), the decline in refinement is real.
>
> Joe Esposito
***************
From: tracey depellegrin connelly <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:41:47 -0500
Good post Joe, and good discussion by others as well.
The Genetics Society of America (GSA) publishes two journals, each
with a different business model. GENETICS, which published its first
paper in 1916, ihas a traditional subscription model, has author page
charges, and an author's choice OA model, and early online within a
week after acceptance. All content is free after one year, including
its archives dating to 1916. Our newest journal, G3:
Genes|Genomes|Genetics, is fully open access, with a Creative Commons
Attribution license, supported by author page charges only.
I wanted to address the abstract error you pointed out (in your
original post). I take your example, though I wonder if we're asking
the right questions. What more is lost in the trade-off between costs
and quality?
While some assert that Gold OA, by its nature (or perhaps by the
nature of the drive for profit), demands lower costs and lower
editorial standards – that is not necessarily the case with G3. We
believe we owe our authors more than just a DOI.
I believe, yes, that the error you mentioned could have been caught at
several levels: by a diligent reviewer, an associate or senior editor
handling the paper, or a copy-editor. In fact, G3 articles are typeset
and copy-edited to the same high standard as the articles in GENETICS.
Our journals include a great deal of math and statistics, and demand
precise, pristine, thorough copy-editing. We simply do not, and will
not, sacrifice quality for lower costs. In the longer-term, we (and
our authors) believe our process adds real value.
Finally, I don't agree that Gold OA requires lower editorial
standards. Like GENETICS (and many scientific society journals), G3
has an editor-in-chief, a board of senior editors, and an 78-member
editorial board, all of whom are working scientists, many with busy
day jobs as PIs and senior researchers or department chairs. Still,
all decisions on manuscripts are made by an Associate or a Senior
Editor. It is those decisions in our editorial process – which we call
peer-editing – that we believe separates the wheat from the chaff.
While most of our reviewers write thoughtful, complete, helpful
reviews, in the end, it is up to the Associate Editor to read the
manuscript, read the reviews, decide which of the reviewer suggestions
the authors must take into account, and write the decison letter, and
offer guidance to the authors.
G3 may not be an OA megajournal, but we are trying to strike a balance
between fiscal sustainability, scholarship, quality, editorial
standards, and, like GENETICS, a desire for long-term impact in the
scientific community rather than a quick, shorter-term gain.
Not trying to plug G3, per se, but to put forward our editorial
processes, which places peer-editing and quality on the same level as
the need for a healthy bottom line in our Gold OA model. Stay tuned.
Best,
tracey
Tracey DePellegrin Connelly
Executive Editor
GSA Journals
[log in to unmask]
phone 412.760.5391
twitter: tracey depellegrin @tracey423
Genetics Society of America
Bethesda MD 20814-3998
On 2/17/13 8:55 AM, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 05:21:55 -0600
I have been sitting in a conference this weekend in which one of the
principal topics has been the future of peer review. So it was with
surprise and consternation that I happened to see the abstract to an
article in PLoS ONE:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056178
The article covers a study of how people read ebooks. And there, in
the very first sentence of the abstract, is a simple factual error.
The abstract states that ebooks outsell print books in the U.S. and
UK. Not true. Ebooks outsell print at Amazon, but the book biz is
far bigger then Amazon, three to five times bigger, depending on who's
counting.
Is this a problem of peer review? A problem of insufficient
copy-editing? A copy editor would have fact-checked that item, but
copy-editing is one of those things that is being cut back or even
eliminated to reduce costs for Gold OA services. The problem is
structural: Gold OA requires lower costs because the burden of paying
for the work rests with the producer instead of being spread across
all the readers.
Gold OA, in other words, structurally requires lower editorial
standards. Much of the time we may not care about that, but then you
stumble on one simple error and begin to reflect on the entire
enterprise.
Joe Esposito
***************
From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:16:49 +0100
No, no joke. And here are the records in PubMed and PMC.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18941623
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2565068/
PLoS ONE was alerted to the problem some time ago.
Richard
-----
From: Pippa Smart <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 09:37:39 +0000
Is this a joke article?
Pippa
Pippa Smart
Research Communication and Publishing Consultant PSP Consulting
email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.pspconsulting.org
Editor of the ALPSP-Alert, Reviews editor of Learned Publishing
On 18 February 2013 20:52, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:15:45 +0100
>
> Joe,
>
> You might want to read the abstract to this paper:
>
> http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.000
> 3455
>
> Richard Poynder
|
